House Dems give Obama Gitmo space

House Democrats won a showdown vote Thursday preserving President Barack Obama’s authority to temporarily transfer Guantanamo prisoners into the United States to be prosecuted in American courts.

The action shows a renewed determination by the majority to dig in and stiffen its lines in what’s become a test of loyalty to the president as well as a test of the party’s own ability to break the impasse over year-end appropriations bills.

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Just two weeks ago, Republicans had prevailed on the same Gitmo issue when 88 Democrats broke ranks. Wednesday, the leadership held its losses to just 25, and the 224-193 win cleared the way for final passage of a long-delayed $42.8 billion budget for the Homeland Security Department.

“We cannot afford to stop,” said Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), the bill’s manager. “It is time to get on with it, to get past the political games, to get past the gotcha amendments and motions and to fund Homeland Security.”

Just three of the 12 annual spending bills have gone to the president thus far — including a $33.5 billion energy and water bill that cleared the Senate on Thursday. Homeland could be a fourth next week, but Senate Republicans are slow-walking the process in what Democrats see as a concerted strategy to squeeze the coming debate on health care reform.

Also looming in the background is a fight over raising the debt ceiling to help finance this spending. In August, the Treasury Department had predicted it would need action by mid-October, but that deadline has since been extended to late November or December.

When it comes, the debt increase will be a powerful pressure point for Republicans. Even moderates like Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) predict real resistance, and Democrats are already discussing options such as adding the measure to a popular spending bill that appeals to the GOP, like the annual Pentagon appropriations measure.

Technically, House Democrats are past this debt hurdle, since under House rules, passage of the spring budget resolution automatically generated an estimated $925 billion increase, raising the ceiling to about $13 trillion. But Senate Democrats argue that it might be smarter to join forces in raising the ceiling even higher now rather than face an almost certain second embarrassing debt vote next year, prior to the 2010 elections.

In slowing down the appropriations process, the emotional Gitmo debate is both a favorite pressure point and a political bone for Republicans.

Thursday’s rhetoric was often blistering. “Keep these detainees off sacred American soil,” intoned Kentucky Rep. Hal Rogers, the Republican manager for the bill. New York Rep. Peter King, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, warned that allowing prosecutions in the United States “is a time bomb waiting to happen.”

Even in defeat, California Rep. Jerry Lewis, the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, didn’t let up. “Somebody decided they would work that package a little bit,” he told POLITICO. “But it’s a very dangerous vote for a lot of Democrats.”

Price countered that “no matter who’s in the White House, they would insist on” the limited discretion allowed to Obama. Terrorists have been successfully prosecuted before in U.S. courts with a 91 percent conviction rate, Price said: “Is that an option that we simply, summarily want to close off?”

“We’ve tried, convicted and punished people who are the worst of the worst in this country repeatedly,” Price said. “We can do so again.”

The same homeland security bill severely limits any permanent transfers of Guantanamo detainees until the White House comes up with a plan acceptable for the future of the facility on the island of Cuba. But to deny even the possibility of limited trials, Price said, would be to “guarantee, I’m afraid, no progress in resolving the status of detainees for a year.”